Eric Partaker of Chilango and 4 More Crowd Innovators To Speak at CSW Global 2016

In less than 50 days, global innovators and crowdsourcing practitioners will meet at Crowdsourcing Week Global 2016. Following up last week’s announcement of powerhouse women speakers, we’re thrilled to introduce five more confirmed speakers – all leaders of disruptive companies like Chilango, Crowdicity, The Crowd Data Centre, Yoti and MillionYou.

Here’s an overview of the speakers track records and a sneak peek of their presentations.

Eric Partaker, Co-founder, Chilango

Making Successful “Mini-Bond” Offers on Crowdfunding

Eric will share Chilango’s experience in being one of the most successfully funded business to date on Crowdcube (#1 of over 350 funded companies to date with over £5.5 million raised in crowdfunded debt and equity). Chilango was the first company ever to provide mini-bond offers on a crowdfunding platform.

Eric grew up in Chicago where he fell in love with both Mexican food and the hospitality industry. In 2007 he co-founded Chilango, serving fresh Mexican food across the capital. At 10 restaurants and growing Chilango has been voted London’s best burritos by Zagat, Harden’s, Time Out, and The Evening Standard. Before Chilango Eric worked at Skype as well as McKinsey & Company. In 2014 the Telegraph named Eric amongst Britain’s 27 Most Disruptive Entrepreneurs. He has appeared as a guest judge with Lord Alan Sugar on The Apprentice and cooked together with Tana Ramsay on UKTV’s Market Kitchen.

Rob Wilmot, Co-founder and CEO, Crowdicity

Crowdsourcing Innovation: Real Life Stories

How can we engage with large groups of people (often with complex and competing needs) to effect positive change? In this session, Rob will talk about the barriers to innovation and, by illustrating real-life stories from the government, health, business and the charitable sectors, and show how crowdsourcing innovation can overcome these barriers.

Rob has an unusual history. In 1998, he was one of the founding executives of Freeserve, the ISP launched by Dixons. Following an IPO of £1.6bn, he became one of the youngest ever executive officers of a FTSE 100 company at the age of 29. After the sale of Freeserve Rob went on to found, and invest in, a number of tech companies as well as taking on side roles in education and government. Rob led the turnaround of a failing FE college and has recently completed his two-year tenure as HMG’s Crown Commercial Representative for Software. Working out of the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, he was responsible for resetting relationships with IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft and developing commercial capability across government departments; driving hundreds of millions of pounds in savings through the renegotiation of key government contracts. It’s exactly these diverse experiences that have influenced Rob’s thinking about how we engage with large groups of people – often with complex and competing needs – to effect positive change. Which is where his latest venture, Crowdicity, comes in and is also the theme of his session at CSW Global 2016.

Barry James, Co-founder and CEO, TheCrowdDataCentre

Crowdfunding: The New Seed funding for the Collaborative Economy, Insights from 400,000 Crowdfunding Campaigns

Is Crowdfunding the new Seed-Funding? How can it empower the collaborative economy? Barry will tackle these questions in his presentation.

He is the Co-founder and CEO of TheCrowdfundingCentre.com and FundingHubs.com and the CrowdDataCenter.com, the world’s observatory for the crowd economy. One of the best-known names in Crowdfunding and Fintech in the UK and worldwide he has played a leading role in reforming UK regulation to support innovation – a radical change now admired and emulated across the world. He’s also a Visiting Fellow at the University of Portsmouth Business School. To a deep background in, psychology, engineering and systems design he has added decades of experience in business and as an entrepreneur and is passionate about innovation, crowdfunding, citizen entrepreneurship and the collaborative economy.

Robin Tombs, Founder, Yoti

The Future of Personal Data and Identity: Crowdsourcing Identity Credentials

Robin will discuss how to put consumers in charge of their identity (even anonymous ones), thir-party attributes adding a new dimension, and which biometric options to trust.

Robin Tombs is Founder of Yoti, a digital identity system which helps you prove who you are and confirm who other people are, online and face to face. Robin was Co-founder at Gamesys, one of the world’s leading online gaming operators with annual revenues over £200m, 950 staff and offices in 8 countries. He worked at PWC as a Chartered Accountant from 1993 to 1997 in the UK and Asia before co-founding IDM, a web game business which was sold in 1999. Robin is also an investor in a handful of early stage for profit and social UK businesses, including Infinitesima, Trumin, Luxdeco, Working Knowledge and the National College for Digital Skills. Robin is passionate about creating opportunities for young people to achieve their potential in life and to bring scalable web and mobile technologies to the not-for-profit sector. As such Robin set up ZING in 2009. He is a Trustee at Future First, a charity which is designed to help state schools build and manage an alumni community. He holds a degree in Economics and Politics from Bristol University. He is a keen sports enthusiast mostly watching either his 3 children play or great teams on the TV.

Jan Kasprzycki-Rosikon, Managing Director, MillionYou

The Power of Diverse Thinking

No matter how big of a city or corporation you are, you can be sure you do not have all the answers within your organization. Jan will explain the incredible power of diverse thinking – the capacity for having lots of ideas and possible answers to one question.

Jan Kasprzycki-Rosikon has over 16 years experience in many divisions in the content and media industries. He is fluent in four languages and has worked in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Americas for The World Bank in Washington DC and Pearson Group in London. Jan runs and heads the leading crowdsourcing agency in Poland. Since 2007, MillionYou has been working for the leading brands on implementing internal employee engagement solutions (Deloitte), building citizen sourcing platforms (City of Warsaw), engaging a community of 27k creatives to generate content for international brands (Coca-Cola, Nestle). Jan co-authored “Crowdsourcing: How to Engage Consumers in the World of Brands” (One Press/2013). Being a pilot, he is interested in aviation and exploring cultures, customs, and religions.

Already got questions for these crowd innovators? Drop them in the comments!

About The Author

Maria is the Editorial Associate of Crowdsourcing Week in charge of media outreach. She's a major of Business Management and Entrepreneurship and an advocate of faith-based non-profit organizations, women's, and children's rights. When she's not writing and dabbling with the Crowdsourcing Week team, she satiates her wanderlust and travel around Asia.